No one’s forgotten, nothing’s forgotten

This Monday (9th May) we celebrated Victory Day. For most Russians this is the most important and favourite holiday of the year. 71 years have passed since the day when the Great Patriotic War ended. Each year the celebration of the Great Victory makes thousands of people remember the hard times their families’ relatives and friends saw in 1941-1945. The War took the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians, destroyed families and cities and yet here we are, the new generation in peaceful times.

Victory Day is celebrated in Russia nationwide – wherever you are, if you are Russian, you celebrate this Day. This is why this year the Victory Parade gathered millions of people in Russia – in each large city and small town, the population flooded the main squares to see new armoury and the machines of the Great Patriotic War times. And the Immortal Regiment March took place not only in Russia, but in more than 50 countries all over the globe – Great Britain, Spain, Montenegro, South Africa, Australia…16 million people walked along the main streets and squares in their cities and towns carrying the portraits of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents – the people they knew and the ones they have never met.

And each year the best of the best fireworks take place. Late in the evening the dark sky is coloured by hundreds of salvos and the crowd cries “Hooray!”, louder than the thunder from these salvos, and in the crowds, people congratulate those around them on Victory Day, shake hands, smile and cry. And you can never know what it means to be a part of it unless you feel it, unless you try it, unless you’re here at the Great Patriotic War Victory Day celebration.